Technologies For Higher Education

Technologies for higher education Prof. dr. Frederik Questier Vrije Universiteit Brussel Management workshop for University of Cuenca, Ecuador March 2010

My background

➢ Teaching courses: ➢ Educational Technologies ➢ Learning Technologies ➢ Virtual Learning Environments ➢ E-learning design ➢ Departments ➢ Interdisciplinary Teacher Training ➢ Educational Sciences ➢ Former head of center for ➢ Education innovation ➢ Teacher staff training ➢ Virtual learning Environment

My research interests 5

Projects with Cuba 6

Projects with Kenia (Nairobi and Moi universities) Expertise Centre ICT for edu Training Consultancy Research Postgraduate master ICT in Education 7

One Laptop Per Child 8

Topic of today's workshop How can we improve teaching and learning with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) ? Why? How? 9

Research studies show that how much and how effectively teachers integrate ICT in their teaching process depends mainly on their educational vision (not age, gender, ...) 10

University of Cuenca Educational mission and vision Formation of graduates with ethical, academic and technical skills capable of tackling the challenges of today and next generation, with focus on the sustainable economic development of Ecuador’s rich resources in harmony with nature and focus on equity between different genders, races and cultures. Through: Evolving from passive to participatory education at pre- and postgraduate level; Introducing research via thesis projects and postgraduate programs (from professional master to master of science programs) 11

How can we educate our students for the unknown future? 12

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. (Alan Kay, 1971) 13

Information Society ? 14

Knowledge Society 15

From information scarcity to information abundance ! 16

Evolution of the internet? Web 2.0 (Social) Web 3.0 (Semantic) Mobile and Ubiquitous Global brain – intelligence 17

Virtual reality gets photorealism Crysis 18

Augmented Reality 19

Evolution of organizations Source: Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps, Virtual Teams http://www.netage.com/pub/books/VirtualTeams%202/CHAPTERS%20PDF/chapter02.pdf 20

Network society 21

Knowledge? ➢ More than facts ➢ Distributed ➢ in network of people and information sources ➢ Total knowledge is doubling every year ➢ Explicit knowledge ➢ Knowledge that can be expressed and transfered easily ➢ Tacit knowledge ➢ Knowledge that is not easy to express or transfer 23

Knowledge Spiral ➢ Nonaka, Ikujiro, and Hirotaka Takeuchi, The Knowledge Creating Company, New York, Oxford University Press 1995 ➢ Source figure: Jeremy J. S. B. Hall, http://www.simulations.co.uk/KM.htm 24

Major learning theories Behaviourism Learning = change of behaviour Stimulus → response Learner is passive receiver of knowledge Mind = black box Cognitivism Focuses on how the brain works Metacognition, learning strategies Motivation Constructivism Knowledge is actively constructed by the learner New knowledge is linked to prior knowledge Learners discover themselves facts and relationships Social Constructivism Social interaction plays a fundamental role Discussions lead to deeper understanding and increased motivation Constructionism Constructing an artifact or something that can be shared leads to better learning Connectivism Learning is a process of connecting nodes or information sources Knowledge and learning may reside in non-human appliances Try to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts Know-what & Know-how → Know-where 25

Demand for new skills? ➢ Social skills ➢ communicating, networking, teamwork ➢ Creativity ➢ Entrepeneurship ➢ Information technology skills ➢ Handle information overload ➢ ... ➢ ➢ Learning to learn → Life Long Learning! 27

Competences ?! ➢ ability to use ➢ knowledge ➢ skills ➢ attitudes ➢ in complex, authentic situations 28

Educational innovation “The highest-ranked universities are the ones that make significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge through research, teach with the most innovative curricula and pedagogical methods under the most conducive circumstances” World Bank 29

Staff are digital immigrants, students are digital natives (Prensky) 30

Are we innovating fast enough the way we teach? 31

“Schools we have today were designed around commonsense assumptions that had never been scientifically tested” R. Keith Sawyer 32

Educational innovation? Traditional learning New Learning teacher oriented student oriented (passive) knowledge transfer (active) knowledge construction; interaction focus on knowledge focus on competences individual learning collaborative learning focus on course contents also focus on learning process (learning to learn, reflection) teacher = expert teacher = coach teacher directs also self-directed learning selective education adaptive education students focus on good scores attention for (intrinsic) motivation surface learning deep (natural) learning 34

Educational innovation? Traditional learning New Learning abstract, school-like examples & tasks authentic contexts evaluation by teacher self/co/peer-assessment, ... summative evaluation + formative evaluation (learning from mistakes and feedback) linear curriculum flexible curriculum independent courses and disciplines connexion, integration, interdisciplinarity supply oriented demand oriented uniform education differentiated education (adapted to e.g. learning styles) classroom flexible learning environment (also online & virtual) course materials powerful learning environments formal learning + informal learning behaviorism and cognitivism Social constructivism (and connectivism) 35

How can we improve teaching and learning with ICT? ➢ Don't apply traditional teaching methods in new technologies! Substitution? (dropping your coursebook online) Transformation! 36

Seek the synergy! Theories about learning and technologies have evolved towards very similar concepts 37

Model Jonassen for (constructive) learning environments → Technologies can support the intentional construction, in a collaborative way, of complex contextualized artifacts and the conversation and reflection about it 38

Exercise Which characteristics of Jonassen's model apply to the following learning environments?

Active/Manipulative - Collaborative - Complex - Constructive - Contextualized - Conversational - Intentional - Reflective 40

Active/Manipulative - Collaborative - Complex - Constructive - Contextualized - Conversational - Intentional - Reflective Case kit (Ugent, Jan Velghe) 41

Active/Manipulative - Collaborative - Complex - Constructive - Contextualized - Conversational - Intentional - Reflective Pharmacy simulations 46

Active/Manipulative - Collaborative - Complex - Constructive - Contextualized - Conversational - Intentional - Reflective ICT supported 47

Active/Manipulative - Collaborative - Complex - Constructive - Contextualized - Conversational - Intentional - Reflective ICT supported 48

Active/Manipulative - Collaborative - Complex - Constructive - Contextualized - Conversational - Intentional - Reflective Competition + ? 50

Active/Manipulative - Collaborative - Complex - Constructive - Contextualized - Conversational - Intentional - Reflective evirtual.ucuenca.edu.ec (Moodle) 59

Evolution in E-learning? e-learning 1.0 e-learning 2.0 closed source software open source software solitary platform integrated in ICT-environment closed to outer world open where useful,closed where necessary only own institution connected with other institutions focus on technology focus on pedagogy consumption interaction courses communities teacher oriented student centered content management knowledge management upload of materials authoring environment tools intelligent assistant institutional learning environment personal learning environment 64

The VLE (virtual learning environment) ➢ is becoming ➢ the centre of learning ➢ the face of your university ➢ crucial ➢ corner stone infrastructure 65

Murphy's law Anything that can go wrong will go wrong ➢ power interruptions and surges ➢ overheating (air-conditioning failure) ➢ hardware failure ➢ network interruptions and congestions ➢ bugs ➢ broken updates ➢ unintentional deletes ➢ dirty/faulty data input ➢ security breaches ➢ viruses ➢ fire, flooding, theft 66

Scale (up) adequately Prepare for disaster recovery Have separate test and backup setups 67

Is this ICT supported learning paradigm shift possible without teacher learning/training?

Rogers' Model: Diffusion of innovations 69

How to get every teacher to apply innovative teaching? ➢ Innovators and early adopters ➢ will start when you show them best practices ➢ The rest ➢ will need in situ support 70

Build an educational innovation center ➢ Expertise center ➢ Resources for experimentation ➢ Research approach ➢ Mixed team ➢ Educational scientists ➢ Educational technologists ➢ Provide services to teaching staff and students ➢ E-learning environment ➢ Training of teacher staff ➢ Facilitation of innovation 73

Formalize contact with faculties ➢ Educational innovation steering committee ➢ members from ➢ each faculty ➢ central academic services ➢ and/or ➢ in each faculty ➢ an active, full time responsible for educational innovation 74

Collaborate with edu researchers ➢ Researchers / teachers from school of educational sciences could ➢ assist with advice ➢ help in training teacher staff ➢ elaborate research projects around local context ➢ provide internship and thesis students 75

Educational mission and vision on teaching learning ➢ Get it written ➢ Get it known ➢ Get it implemented ➢ ask on every curriculum reform ➢ ask every new teacher to elaborate her vision on it 76

Perform a teacher needs analysis Our results ➢ Didactical support for which tasks? (56%-30%) ➢ Adapt to the way students learn most efficiently ➢ Development of activating tasks ➢ Use of ICT in education ➢ Development of efficient learning materials ➢ Motivating my students ➢ Translate competences to evaluation ➢ Giving feedback to my students ➢ Translate competencies to effective learning activities ➢ Formulating end competences for my courses ➢ Adapt to the prior knowledge of my students 77

Perform a teacher needs analysis Our results ➢ Didactical support in which way? (66%-33%) ➢ Online self study courses ➢ Workshops ➢ Individual support of an educational advisor ➢ Intervision ➢ Project group ➢ Individual coaching/mentoring by an experienced colleague ➢ ➢ Formal training 'academical didactics'? ➢ 57% 'yes' 78

Disseminate best practices ➢ Website, news letter, books, ... ➢ Yearly day of Educational Innovation ➢ External keynotes ➢ Workshops from internal innovators ➢ Panel discussions ➢ Poster sessions 79

Provide didactical seminar for (new) teachers ➢ yearly ➢ 4 days residential ➢ 'obligatory' for new teachers ➢ reflection about personal educational vision ➢ didactical methods ➢ Introduction to educational technologies ➢ feedback with video recordings 80

Provide workshops ➢ How to motivate my students? ➢ How to make my courses more interactive? ➢ Peer assessment for group projects ➢ E-learning platform ➢ Student portfolio ➢ Formulation & analysis of Multiple Choice tests ➢ Intellectual property & plagiarism ➢ Digital formats ➢ Open learning with wiki’s, Wikipedia, wiki courses, ... ➢ Open Source Software & reusable learning resources ➢ Voice techniques 81

Provide question driven support ➢ Face to face advise and consultancy ➢ E-mail helpdesk ➢ evirtual@ucuenca.edu.ec ➢ OTRS (Open Source Trouble Ticket System) 82

Facilitate innovation projects ➢ Open call for projects in faculties ➢ Provide funding ➢ Anything from small seed money to 2y 1 FTE ➢ Challenge: continuation after the funding ➢ Or: assign central people that can go from project to project 83

Facilitate communication between students and staff yearcode@pointcarre.vub.ac.be coursecode@pointcarre.vub.ac.be + variants for 'ad valvas' and 'work students' Software: GNU mailman : www.lists.org 84

Involve your VLE users 85

Reflection task ➢ Which recommendations do you have for you university? ➢ How can we improve teaching and learning with ICT? 86

Nominal group technique University of Cuenca results ➢ ICT-edu training for teachers (and students) ➢ Funding for ICT-edu projects ➢ Policy for the use of ICT-edu ➢ Promote teachers that have good use of ICT ➢ Introduce ICT in curriculum, carreer, faculties ➢ Center for educational innovation and technologies ➢ Professional networks to share experiences & information ➢ Create awareness about reasons for ICT-edu use ➢ Promote evirtual, e.g. with workshops ➢ Workshops on ICT-edu ➢ Request feedback from attendance in ICT workshops ➢ Give teachers a few months training (learning) time ➢ Deadline for ICT-edu ➢ Open mind for new technologies ➢ Research about ICT-edu (tools) ➢ Project to implement ICT in the classroom with supervisors that monitor implementation ➢ Stimulate ICT instead of manual work for course descriptions ➢ Collect statistics of availability of students computers ➢ Budget for student computers and computer labs 87

Active/Manipulative - Collaborative - Complex - Constructive - Contextualized - Conversational - Intentional - Reflective Questions? Comments? Muchas gracias! See also http://questier.com 88

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Technologies For Higher Education

by Frederik Questier on Mar 20, 2010

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